Why ServInt Stands Beside Rackspace and You Should Too

ServInt has been in business for nearly 15 years. In that time we have seen incredible success, we have seen defeat, and we have seen resurgence. We have had honest, healthy competition from friends and colleagues and we have seen disingenuous poaching by hundreds of companies who — surprise — aren’t around anymore. What we are seeing now is a reminder of how a responsible company handles a serious issue, and how some companies try to take advantage of that.

Rackspace has had a series of power related issues in their Dallas-Fort Worth Data Center that temporarily brought down a not-insignificant number of customers. From the beginning and throughout the ordeal, Rackspace was communicative, forthright, and responsive about the entire process on their corporate blog as well as on Twitter. Customers were justifiably upset, after all their business is on the line, and they vocalized it appropriately in phone calls, emails, and tweets. All respectable webhosts strive to provide as much uptime as humanly possible and while I won’t speculate on the causes of the very public outages, I will say that in our mind we feel Rackspace has been incredibly professional and an exemplary Industry peer throughout this crisis.

The fateful night in 2004 when ServInt’s fiber was cut.

ServInt’s last network outage was in 2004 when our major fiber lines were cut in the last mile. These lines were supposed to be redundant. However, our provider at the time combined the two at the last mile for reasons that they have still never disclosed to us (though we have since ensured that the same problem cannot reoccur). Murphy’s Law struck, and the combined line was cut, leaving ServInt’s customers without service for a considerable amount of time. I was literally standing on the sidewalk talking to the ServInt team on the phone and ensuring that the line was getting restored as quickly as possible. I was not a happy man that day in the freezing Washington, D.C. winter, having to explain to ServInt’s customers that we had let them down. It is not a good feeling.

So now, 5 years later, ServInt has fought hard to maintain the best uptime in the business, and we’ve done so knowing full well the consequences of failure and knowing that our customers would hold us accountable.

Rackspace is there right now. The weather might be nicer in Texas, but the sentiment is the same. They had a bad week, but are holding themselves accountable and encouraging their customers to do the same. Ultimately, the true test of a company is not how well it does at the top of its game, but how quickly it gets back up. Rackspace will get back up and we look forward to it.

There are several companies, if you can even call them companies, who have been in business for less time than a stale pot of coffee and are throwing mean spirited, transparent promotions out to justifiably angry customers. We feel this is not only in bad taste, but it is unethical and an excellent testament to how they view their fellow hosting providers. You attract customers by providing great service and thereby earning it, not by bashing someone else’s.

To those who are seriously considering these services, how do you feel about a company that devotes its time and energy as a vulture? If something similar happened to them, would they be as communicative? Could they even survive it? Would you want someone who holds such contempt for other businesses to be trusted to host your own?

Karma, after all, is the great equalizer of men.

As there are parallels between ServInt and Rackspace — we are competitors on some levels — both of us understand the complexity of large-scale hosting. ServInt has been through this before, we have come out a stronger company because of it, and we know that Rackspace and its employees, customers, and shareholders will walk away with a stronger company too. We at ServInt thank them for their contribution and innovation to our industry, and we wish them the best.

And here’s the bottom line for those of you who are thinking about jumping ship on Rackspace. There are always reasons to leave any hosting provider, but make sure that your reasons are the right ones. You might just go from “problem today, none tomorrow” to “here today, gone tomorrow”.

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Comments

[...] someone who holds such contempt for other businesses to be trusted to host your own?”Source: http://blog.servint.net/2009/07/08/why-servint-stands-beside-rackspace-and-you-should-too/ Reed’s defense of Rackspace became legendary in the server hosting world and the gold [...]

[...] Support. A recent blog by ServInt, a competitor of ours, was in agreement of just that sentiment http://blog.servint.net/2009/07/08/why-servint-stands-beside-rackspace-and-you-should-too/ one quote from them states “From the beginning and throughout the ordeal, Rackspace was [...]

Chief Executive Officer, ServInt

Reed Caldwell is the founder and CEO of ServInt. Founded in 1995, ServInt has since expanded its network nationwide with data centers in Los Angeles, Northern Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Caldwell’s vision and leadership have led ServInt to become one of the most successful privately held hosting companies in the U.S. Reed is a member of San Diego Social Venture Partners (SDSVP) and a Strategic Advisor for the Equinox Center in San Diego. Reed is an active venture philanthropist and lives in Southern California.